Unescapable Memories
by Misha
Summary: The memories haunted him wherever he went. He was unable to escape the living reminders of his past.


Unescapable Memories   
By Misha 

Disclaimer- Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling and is not mine, however much I might wish differently. However, I am not making any money off of this, so please do not sue me! 

Author's Notes- This is a dark, bitter piece that I have no idea why I wrote. It just spoke to me. It's another horrible possibility for what could happen in the end. It focuses on Harry, though his name is only mentioned once, and is a bitter tale of being the one left behind. There's mentions of a couple different relationships here, but this really isn't a romantic piece. It's a character piece and it's horribly angsty. I love Harry and I love making him suffer. He just does it so well. Well, that's all, enjoy! Feedback is welcome, in fact, it's craved! 

Rating- R, I guess for mentions of sexual situations, character death, and some violent descriptions. 

Summery- The memories haunted him wherever he went. He was unable to escape the living reminders of his past.   


* * *

It had been five years since he left the wizarding world, but he still found it impossible to forget. 

There were reminders every where he went. 

One of the tellers at the bank had dark hair and a no-nonsense tone of voice. She reminded him of Hermione. 

But then again, so did the young woman he met at the library. She too had dark hair and her arms were full of books and it was obvious that she had a thirst for knowledge. 

He always avoided the teller, but he asked the young woman out. 

He kissed her and remembered another young woman's lips. 

This woman was just a shadow of Hermione. Even as she lay in his arms after sex, he knew that it was not her whom he had been thinking about as he climaxed, but of the lover from his past who had left his life and was never coming back. 

He felt horrible and he called it off with the young woman, but he knew that that would not solve his problem. Nor would it bring back what Voldemort had stolen from him. 

Other women reminded him of Hermione and sometimes he dated them, just to try and recapture a few moments with a past lover. 

Sometimes the memories were of someone else who had touched his life and was then ripped from it. 

He could never see a head of bright red hair without thinking of Ron and Ginny. Any of the Weasleys, actually. 

Realistically he knew that a few of them were still alive, but he never even thought about contacting them. They were part of a different life. Besides, all it would do would be bring back the painful memories for them both. 

The man in the apartment next door to him had red hair and kind of reminded him of Ron. 

He hated talking to him, because when he did, he always heard the last conversation he ever had with Ron. Always remembered that his best friend had professed his love and he had rejected him, only hours before his best friend died fighting for the cause. 

Six and a half years of friendship ended in one moment and then Ron was gone. He knew that he would always be haunted by that. 

There was a red-haired girl who worked at the corner store and had a crush on him. 

She always reminded him of Ginny. Another person who had loved him, whom he had never been able to love and who had died tragically. 

Everyone who loved him had died. 

Yet, he lived. 

He lived to suffer through the pain and with the constant reminders. 

Like the pain he felt whenever he saw a silver-blonde head in the crowd. 

That was always the worst. Because even a glimpse was like a cut directly to his heart. 

It was like Draco was standing in front of him once more. He could still hear the mocking insults, could still feel Draco's lips against his own, could still see his lover's dead body laying there motionless... 

He wondered if the reminders were his penance for the way he had lived his life. 

He knew now that he had been wrapped up in himself. He had not seen the damage that he was doing, the pain he was causing until it was too late. 

He had had several lovers, though only two serious ones, and hurt several other people along the way. Including two of the people closest to him. 

He had been so young. He had not even been eighteen yet when it ended. When his life came crashing down around him. 

He saw it all over again in the constant reminders. 

Sometimes the reminders were not that obvious. 

Sometimes it was little things. 

Someone clutching a pile of books. A flash of bright orange clothing. A little girl clutching a diary. A mocking laugh. 

It was strange the things that reminded him. 

But then, every lover he had had in the last five years wore one of two faces in his mind. 

Sometimes he saw Hermione in all her girlish innocence. She had known of his past and of his heartbreak and had come to him in those last months despite of it. 

The world had been tense and horrible--doom was almost certainly coming and his duty was weighing heavily on his shoulders. Especially given the sacrifices that had already been made and the ones that were sure to come. 

Yet, she had offered him a moment of salvation, a temporary escape. When he had made love to her, he could almost forget what had happened and what was still to come. 

He could feel innocence and almost imagine himself as free of the heavy burden he carried when he was with her. 

He loved her, not as purely and completely as she loved him, but he loved her none the less. She was Hermione and she was what he needed. 

The night before the end of it all, they married in secret, knowing that morning could bring their deaths. 

And for her it had. 

She had died, one of the last of many victims the war claimed. She died with his name on her lips and his mind was forever branded with her image. 

No woman would ever surpass her. In fact, though he saw her in them all, they were just shadows of her. 

Though, he had never called the wrong name yet, it was always her name in his mind. At least with the women. 

Every once in a while, he still picked up a man. He tried to tell himself it was a habit he had outgrown long ago, but every once in a while he could not resist. 

And when he did go to bed with another man, it was even worse than it was with the women. 

For every man who graced his bed wore Draco's face. Yet it was never even remotely like it was with Draco. 

None of those men would ever lay claim on him, ever brand his soul. 

Yet Draco had. 

It seemed bizarre that they only had three months. That their love affair was over almost before it began. 

Three desperate months when alliance was formed and broken all over the time. When loyalty and trust were not certain things. 

He had taken a chance and trusted an enemy. He had decided to believe in Draco, to trust him, at a time when you doubted even your friends. 

His trust had been based on emotion. On the emotion he had seen in Draco's eyes and felt in his own heart. 

After six years of hating each other, they had managed to fall in love. 

Draco proved worthy of his love and his trust. He died for the cause. He died by his own father's hand. 

Harry had made sure that Lucius Malfoy had paid for that one. It was all he could do. But it was not enough, for it would never bring Draco back. 

After Draco's death, the whole affair had seemed unreal, a moment of madness. 

But he never forgot and it was forever imprinted on his heart. On his soul. And no matter how many lovers he took, he could not forget it any easier than he could forget Hermione. 

It was strange to some people the way he had reacted to the after math. He had shunned the wizarding world. He had won the war, become an even bigger hero than before, but he had walked away from it. 

He did not want it. He did not want to ever even think about it again. 

He was no hero. He was just someone who had paid too high a price for freedom. 

Though Draco, Hermione, Ron and Ginny were the ones who haunted him day and night, they were not the only ones he lost. 

Who didn't he lose? 

Dumbledore was the only one really close to him who had survived. Everyone else had been lost. 

Hagrid was gone. 

Sirius. 

Remus. 

Poor Neville, a hero at the end. He really had deserved to be in Gryffindor. 

Percy, Bill, and Arthur Weasley. 

Oliver Wood. 

Seamus. 

Even Snape. 

They were all victims of the war, giving their lives for what was right. And he missed them all. 

He often wondered why they had to die. Why their lives were taken, when he survived. Wondered why he had to be the Boy Who Lived. 

He hated that name. It should be the Boy Who Was Left Behind, because that is what it felt like. 

He had nothing. He was nothing. 

He was just the shadow of someone used to be. A man plagued by memories. 

No touch, no smile, no laugh from someone else went by without him remembering. 

His every moment was just an echo of the past. 

It lived all around him. 

A past full of love, sex, unrequited feelings, and death. 

He had been so young, so reckless. Now he was broken. 

Each of the dead had taken a piece of him to their graves. 

He was only twenty-three, but he felt like he was a hundred. 

He was handsome, but he felt ugly inside. Felt bitter and angry. 

He wanted the rest of the world to bleed like he had. To suffer like they had. 

Deep down he wished that the young woman from the library would die as Hermione had. 

Wished that any redhead he met would feel the pain that Ron and Ginny had in their last moments. 

Wished that any pale blonds that he sw would die at the hands of their own father's, their bravery leading only to their destruction. 

So many good people had died, when worthless ones lived and he did not get it. 

He did not understand anything. 

Only that he was a shadow. A man half-alive, haunted by memories. 

The End 


End file.
